BREMF/NEMA Conference 2018

Vocal Sound and Style 1450-1650

20-21 October 2018, Brighton

For conference locations, including addresses and maps, see CONTACT page

Description

This
international conference will be run jointly by the National Early Music
Association and the Brighton Early Music Festival. It will be the first in a
series, each timed around two years apart. The 2nd and 3rd
(possibly with different co-sponsors) are likely to be "Vocal Sound and Style
1650-1830" and "Vocal Sound and Style 1830-1920". All would share
common objectives, which are: (1) to generate fresh research on each period, (2)
to stimulate innovative approaches to informed performance practice based on
the research, and (3) to encourage the same training for both professional and
amateur vocalists as that given to players of period instruments.

The first of these conferences will focus within the early
modern period from roughly 1450-1650 which saw the performance of polyphony in
both secular and sacred contexts, the increasing demands made of singers in the
expression of text, the rise of solo song, recitative and opera, and the consequent
development of new vocal techniques and ornamentation. This period covers some
of the most exciting developments to have taken place in the history of vocal
music, with the emergence of the first great vocal celebrities, both men and
women, and some of the first treatises and accounts that deal specifically with
vocal style, colour and technique.

The conference will be designed, not as a talk-fest for
academics, but to appeal to the widest possible public, with workshops
attracting solo and choral singers (both amateur and professional), students
and the general musical public, as well as academics. It is expected that the
conference will attract heads of institutions' vocal studies as well as private
singing teachers.

It is envisaged that draft papers, vocal illustrations and
information on themed sessions will be disseminated a month or so before the
conference, and public discussion invited on social media.

While it is not possible yet to indicate fee levels, there
will be discounts for early booking, NEMA members, and students.